Robert Kuttner is the cofounder and coeditor of The ­American Prospect and a Visiting Professor at Brandeis’s Heller School. His most recent book is Debtors’ Prison: The Politics of ­Austerity Versus Possibility. (October 2014)

IN THE REVIEW

The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad For So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It

by David Weil

Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street

by Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt

In mid-May, The New York Times reported on appalling labor conditions in the construction of NYU’s new satellite campus in Abu Dhabi. NYU said it had a commitment from both the government of Abu Dhabi and the contractor, the BK Gulf corporation, that workers would be treated decently. But the …

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

by David Graeber

In 22 percent of America’s homes with mortgages, the debt exceeds the value of the house. Young adults begin economic life saddled with student debt that recently reached a trillion dollars, limiting their purchasing power. Middle-class families use debt as a substitute for wages and salaries that have lagged behind the cost of living. This private debt overhang, far more than the obsessively debated question of public debt, retards the recovery.